Pinetop Perkins — Belzoni, Mississippi

Joe Willie 'Pinetop' Perkins was born on July 7, 1913, in Belzoni, Mississippi, in Humphreys County — deep in the Delta — and became one of the last surviving direct links to the Delta blues tradition. He played piano rather than guitar, absorbing barrelhouse and boogie-woogie styles in the juke joints of the Delta before eventually joining Muddy Waters's band in the early 1970s, replacing Otis Spann. His piano work on Waters's late recordings is some of the most authoritative blues piano on record, and his own late-career recordings show an artist who retained his edge into his nineties.

Perkins received his nickname from the 1929 Pinetop Smith hit 'Pinetop's Boogie Woogie,' which he learned to play as a young man. He spent decades as a sideman for major blues artists before his solo career took off in the 1980s and 1990s. He won a Grammy Award at age 97 for his album Joined at the Hip, making him the oldest Grammy winner in history at the time.

Belzoni — the 'Catfish Capital of the World' — is in the heart of the Mississippi Delta. A Mississippi Blues Trail marker acknowledges Pinetop Perkins's connection to the area. He died in Austin, Texas, in 2011, at the age of 97.